James stood frozen for a minute, thinking. He hesitated to take even one more step, because although he didn't know much about Dungeons, he knew that Dungeons had traps. The traps were why Dungeons were so feared and generally went unexplored, despite the treasures within. Monsters, generally, could be handled by anyone with the proper gear and understanding of how to kill them. James himself was an example of this: even with no combat class, he was able to handle the low level monsters of this, apparently, early floor of a dungeon.

Traps were another thing entirely.

They were simply unfair. Without a specialized class for scouting, they were nearly impossible to detect and even harder to disarm. Adventuring parties that explored Dungeons essentially revolved around the Scout; everyone else was there just to support them by taking out monsters, carrying supplies, and so on. Without a Scout ensuring the way was free of traps, it was only a matter of time before anyone and everyone in a dungeon triggered one and died.

It was also at this point, while standing there desperately trying to remember everything he ever learned about Dungeons, that James finally put two and two together.

What had happened back at the slave camp?

Everything had been normal other than the new boy falling ill. Judging by what the grey-eyed boy had said, the camp had probably been there for at least a year, more than long enough that if it were going to be taken out by local monsters, it would have. Plus, the camp was warded, and James knew that the wards worked on monsters. Yet…

There had been a bright flash, and then the monsters were upon them almost instantly. Dire Wolves, and even a wyvern…

"Don't go… in the mine…"

James recalled what the new boy had said to him, over and over. And when James went in the mine, there was a monster there.

Almost like the boy had known there would be a monster there.

The boy had said he was an Earth Mage, but what else had he said? Didn't he want to be a Jeweler?

Had he ever said if he had taken the class already?

James felt the blood drain from his face.

The slavers had enslaved someone who hadn't taken his second class yet?

But then, the new boy must have been holding out for rescue so that he could take the class he wanted…

But then he got injured. And whipped. And was sick.

And was dying.

It was a tenuous chain of deductions and assumptions, but…

Had the new boy taken an Avenger class and caused the monsters to appear? And maybe…

Even caused the Dungeon to appear?

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It sounded crazy, but the way James' parents had talked about Avengers, it sounded like they could do a lot of crazy, unusual things.

That didn't explain the traps, though. Or rather, the lack of traps.

James had stomped all over the Dungeon so far, wary of monsters yes, but not at all worried about traps.

Because he had thought he was in a natural cave system where monsters happened to live.

By all rights, he should be dead. He should have triggered every single trap in the entire floor. The odds of somehow not triggering a trap… James felt like he would need a Calculator class to figure that out. It was basically impossible.

But James was still alive.

So, with unsound logic, James came to the conclusion that there weren't any traps on this floor. And if that was the case, it was probable that there weren't any traps in the entire Dungeon.

James had never heard of a Dungeon with floors without traps. Rather he'd heard the opposite, that every floor of a Dungeon had traps, otherwise adventurers would just slay monsters and harvest resources from the Dungeon forever until it withered.

And so the Smith arrived at the conclusion that there were probably not any traps in the Dungeon, but decided he would be cautious anyway.

He finally, after many minutes, took a step towards the treasure chest.

Author's note: research into the Smith's story about a Dungeon without traps began almost immediately after he returned to civilization. A candidate was found, but it was already late in the process of withering, and the Dungeon collapsed before adventurer parties could be formed to investigate and corroborate the Smith's story. As such, the nature of the Dungeon of the Legendary Smith remains a historical mystery, as does the question of what really happened to the slave camp.

Cautiously, slowly, James put one foot in front of the other and approached the treasure chest. First, he poked it with a shovel from a distance. When that failed to illicit a response, he poked all around the ground around the chest, trying to determine if there were any traps. Again with no response, he finally knelt down in front of the chest and lifted the lid.

Inside was… nothing.

"Huh?" James grunted.

Treasure chests were supposed to contain treasure. He was in a Dungeon after all, that was how they worked. Get past the traps, slay the monsters, explore the labyrinth, reach the boss monster of the floor, slay it, open the treasure chest, get treasure.

But there was no treasure here.

For a moment, James was upset and frustrated. But then he remembered that there hadn't been any traps, either. So he decided that, on the whole, he was still coming out ahead.

Thinking that perhaps the chest itself could be useful, as a box, James attempted to store it in his magic bag.

The chest, instead, collapsed into a pile of dust on the floor.

"Well," James said, "I wasn't expecting that."

Next, James investigated one of the burning mushrooms. He scraped one off the wall with his dedicated mushroom harvesting shovel, and as it separated from the wall it ceased combusting. It just glowed faintly red, leaking pink glowing fluid from the stalk. He dug around and harvested a red magic crystal.

[Material Identification: Fire Magic Crystal]

Grinning, he stored the crystal in his magic bag, deciding to leave the rest of the mushrooms alone for now.

First, he wanted to see what was on the next floor.

He raised his shield and circulated his mana, activating the [Reflect] enchantment as was his custom. He held his Earth War Hammer at the ready and stepped carefully down the stairs.

The stairs led straight down a good long ways, and at the end there was a light brighter than any other in the Dungeon so far. Step by step the Smith approached, and after a short tunnel, the vista opened up.

The room was so large that it appeared to be outside altogether, rather than enclosed. There were clouds at the top, blocking the view of the ceiling. Brightly lit, like a mildly overcast day, there was a lake stretching out before James, with a pebbled shore extending to the left and right. In the distance, James could see bits of land jutting out into the lake, possibly forming paths to get across. It was hard to tell from this angle, but there might even be islands in the lake.

The wall of the dungeon was a medium grey slate, lacking in glowshrooms but still striated with veins of colored iron ore. At a glance, it appeared that blue iron ore was the most common, with hardly any red iron ore to be seen. James was gratified to see several decent sized veins of green iron ore, given that he had nearly extracted all the green iron ore on the upper floor.

James advanced, shield raised, towards the water's edge. As he approached, he noticed streaks of blue mana gently flowing through the lake's water, like the river back in his hometown.

Before he could reach the water, movement caught his eye. A ripple on the water's surface.

Then everything happened all at once.

PING

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